Refund policy

Blocks are prepaid research units. If Pharos approves a full or partial refund for a purchase, Stripe returns that amount to the original payment method, and Pharos removes units from the account in proportion to the cumulative amount refunded for that purchase. A full refund removes the full original grant. If prior use makes the balance negative, paid research pauses until later credits restore a positive balance. Disputes freeze the account pending review.

Units are removed in proportion to money returned. Refund half a purchase and half of that purchase’s units come back out. Refund all of it and the whole grant comes out. The proportion is always measured against the total actually charged for that purchase and against the cumulative amount refunded, so a second partial refund on the same purchase adds to the first rather than starting over.

Rounding goes in your favour: a partial reversal never removes more units than the money returned accounts for.

If you had already spent the units before the refund, the balance can go negative. That is deliberate. The alternative would let anyone spend a block and then reclaim the money while keeping the research. Paid research pauses while the balance is below zero and resumes as soon as a later purchase or grant brings it back up.

Refunds are at the Company’s discretion unless a law that applies to you says otherwise. Write to pharos@martintech.dev with the address on the account and roughly when you bought the block, and say what went wrong. Refunds are considered case by case. Stripe returns approved refunds to the original payment method, and the timing after that is your bank’s rather than ours.

Because units do not expire, an unused block is not lost by waiting. Some jurisdictions give consumers a statutory cancellation right for digital services; nothing here reduces it.

A chargeback raised with your bank freezes the account while it is reviewed, and the same proportional reversal applies to the disputed amount. Writing to us first is faster for everyone and does not cost you the option of disputing later.

This policy forms part of the terms of service. What Pharos stores about a purchase is described in the privacy policy.